At 25, Florida`s Only Tunnel Still Unique

December 1, 1985|By Michael Romano, Staff Writer

When it opened 25 years ago, the New River Tunnel served at least two immediate purposes, solving the ``worst traffic jam in Florida`` and putting an abrupt end to a bitter, eight-year debate that divided a community.

Now, the four-lane tube once castigated in newspaper editorials as an ``extravagant monstrosity`` is taken for granted each day by tens of thousands of motorists who use the tunnel to avoid a string of drawbridges in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

``It`s one of the world`s great bargains,`` said Bill Fowler of the state Department of Transportation. ``Especially considering that the traffic wasn`t nearly as bad then as it is now. People couldn`t have envisioned then what traffic would be like today.``

The tunnel, which remains the only such underpass in the state, was opened with a flourish on Dec. 9, 1960, replacing a creaky two-lane drawbridge built 32 years earlier.

When the old drawbridge was raised, ever so slowly, motorists sometimes spent as long as 45 minutes traveling from Broward Boulevard to Southeast Sixth Street - a distance of about six blocks.

Then-Gov. LeRoy Collins, who cut the ribbon to officially open the tunnel to traffic, suggested at the time that ``the worst traffic jam in Florida`` finally was a thing of the past.

Only through the tunnel, which rests 35 feet below the New River, can motorists avoid the risk of nettlesome delays caused by drawbridges opened on demand for pleasure boats.

``It`s hard to quantify, but it`s certainly been a big benefit in terms of traffic flow,`` said Fowler. ``You would have been stuck with another drawbridge, with a disruption of traffic every time a boat passed by.``

The controversy and the traffic jams both are vividly recalled by Winnifred Kinney, whose late husband, Henry, is widely credited with helping swing support in favor of the tunnel through his position as editor of the Broward edition of the Miami Herald.

``If you had that bridge open, it was a pretty bad jam - you could back up all the way down Federal and all the way down Las Olas,`` said Kinney.

Her husband, who died in July, was so instrumental in helping gain public support that the state Legislature is now being asked to approve a bill to rename the structure after Kinney.

``He saw growth, he realized that the area was going to grow,`` said Winnifred Kinney. ``He became very personally involved. He worked day and night on this.``

The state DOT, which maintains the tunnel, estimates that about 48,500 autos pass through the tile-lined tube during a 24-hour-period in the heart of the tourist season, rumbling under the bright lights of sodium vapor lamps installed earlier this year to replace more than a mile of fluorescent bulbs.

Three separate sources of electrical power are used in the tunnel, including a 500,000-watt diesel generator that kicks on in case of power failures.

Giant fans at either end of the 872-foot tunnel force fresh air into it, pushing out deadly carbon-monoxide fumes from car exhausts. The fans, operated by 60-horsepower motors, replace the air within the tunnel every two minutes.

Beneath the roadway of the tunnel is a sewerlike drain coupled to six pipes that keep the tunnel dry even in the fiercest rainstorms and hurricanes.

Though it is now universally accepted, the tunnel was the subject of intense controversy and extended court action in the years preceding its construction.

``Oh, my gracious, there was a lot of controversy,`` said Kinney. ``There was a tunnel faction and there was a bridge faction. It was a very strong fight.``

Opponents contended that the proposed tunnel was far too expensive, that it was prone to frequent flooding and that it would become a carbon monoxide- filled death trap, among other perceived ills and drawbacks. Some foes even surmised that motorists driving through the tunnel would become prime targets for robbers - or highwaymen, as they were called.

The controversy lasted eight years while politicians, business leaders and community activists debated whether a tunnel or a new four-lane bridge should be constructed for the centrally located New River crossing.

R.H. Gore, then-publisher of the Fort Lauderdale News and an outspoken foe of the tunnel, declared in 1952 that the city ``can go bankrupt on this thing.``

An editorial, which appeared in the News shortly before a referendum was held on the issue in November 1956, characterized the tunnel as an ``extravagant monstrosity.``

The Anti-Tunnel Taxpayers` Committee, fearful of cost overruns and the possibility of tolls, battled all the way to the state Supreme Court after a Broward circuit judge dismissed the group`s suit, which was aimed at preventing the use of ad valorem taxes in construction of the tunnel.

Opponents suggested that a 20-foot-high bridge be built instead of the tunnel.

Finally, the divisive struggle ended when Fort Lauderdale voters barely approved the referendum - by a vote of 7,008 to 6,401.